Hi everybody. I absolutely do not want to come across as ungrateful for the great work that has been done for Vassal, but as a newbie (an arrogant newbie) I feel I must say my bit after joining your community.
Why is the Modules Page so poor and bare? I am used to Browse Board Games page in BGG, and there is an abyss of difference between the two.
Vassal’s is obviously auto generated in wiki-like fashion, and there are some “glitches” that should be addressed:
“The Aragón Front” listed under "
'65: Squad-Level Combat in the Jungles of Vietnam listed under ’
Tons of modules beginning with A listed together, just because in their name A is the first indefinite article (i.e. A Call to Arms should be classified under C instead)
Given the general high quality of the modules, doesn’t the main page need better styling and usability with added progressive Search like BGG? At least an Icon for each game? Vassal deserve better!
Now that I threw the stone, I hide cowardly back in the bushes to avoid angry reactions.
There is an ongoing effort to convert to a new module library–it’s the forum’s pinned post. I don’t think anyone involved in the project would disagree with your points–MediaWiki was always a very imperfect solution for the need. If you want to see this transition happen faster, consider lending a hand in that thread.
What you’re seeing there is the inability of the combination of Mediawiki and the templating system to supply a sort key for games distinct from their titles. This is something I have hated for the entire time we’ve had the current system. The new system for displaying the module library has sort keys.
We’re in the process of converting the old module library to a new one, and you can help.
If you’d like to experiment with the new frontend, the code is here.